Humans are a highly cooperative species. Over the last decades, research has heavily focused on the psychological underpinnings of human cooperation as well as their phylogenetic origins. One central approach in this regard has been to study chimpanzees, one of our two closest evolutionary relatives. Numerous findings have led to the view that, compared to humans, chimpanzees are substantially less willing to provide material benefits to conspecifics (especially when this comes at a personal cost) and largely do not take others’ mental states into account for cooperative purposes. In my talk, I will present a series of experimental studies that offer two amendments to this view. Unlike previously assumed, chimpanzees do seem motivated to benefit others materially but only after receiving their assistance. Moreover, chimpanzees do show the ability to adjust their actions in response to others’ mental states in the context of mutualistic cooperation. Together, these findings provide a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the psychological mechanisms underlying chimpanzee and human cooperation.